Reflecting on the journey to equity for women at Wipfli

In honor of International Women's Day and Women’s History Month, I have spent some time reflecting on the many ways women have shaped Wipfli’s culture for the better.

These thoughts come at a time when two members of our eight-person board of directors are women — a first for our firm — and when each of our last three annual promotion cycles has seen an even split between men and women selected to join the partnership.

These benchmarks in our evolution toward greater gender parity are worth celebrating. But intrinsic in that celebration is an acknowledgement that things haven’t always been this way — and that there is still more work to do.

For years, women have been underrepresented in accounting, particularly when it comes to leadership positions. For too long, pathways to advancement in our field tended to be narrow and leadership positions were almost exclusively occupied by men who for various reasons tended to continue to recognize and promote other men.

Elizabeth “Betty” Peters helped break this glass ceiling in the profession in 1961, when she became Wipfli’s first female partner as well as the first woman in Wisconsin to be elected partner in a CPA firm. It further shattered when partners Kathy LaBrake and Lauri Roberts became Wipfli’s first and second female board members in 2006 and 2015 respectively.

It would be impossible to name each of the dozens of women who have played pivotal roles in helping Wipfli chart a strategic course toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion. Since I joined the firm in 1992, we have developed a culture that is more welcoming of not only women, but of people from all backgrounds and perspectives.

Nonetheless, I feel called to spotlight in particular the contributions of colleagues like Pam Schneider, who in 2016 became the first woman to hold a senior leadership team role at Wipfli; JoAnn Cotter, who was named Wipfli’s first female leader of our industries in 2016; current board members Kelly Arduino and Valerie Fedie, who are making history with their concurrent term, and who hold important leadership positions beyond their board service; Kelly Fisher, who is the first woman to lead our professional practices as well as our innovation and transformation efforts; and Principal and Chief HR officer Maureen Pistone, who was the first non-client-facing elected member of the partnership and has been instrumental in furthering the scope and reach of our DEI mission in recent years. This is a small sampling of the sea change in opportunities for women at Wipfli in the three decades I’ve been with the firm.

All of these women share one important trait and it's a core value at Wipfli: perseverance. They rose to leadership despite having few role models and while facing cultural and structural biases. With no certainty that their goals would be realized, they persevered and rewrote the future at Wipfli for those who enter our firm today.

I have been proud to watch and offer my sincerest support as, one by one, these Wipfli trailblazers have used their leadership status to enact true and lasting cultural change within Wipfli. It was my privilege to codify this support in 2019, when I signed the CEO Action Pledge for Diversity & Inclusion.

These groundbreaking associates and their female colleagues have worked tirelessly as mentors and role models, passing along their hard-won industry knowledge to women just starting out at our firm. They have created embedded DEI initiatives such as Women of Wipfli (WoW) and its offshoot, Leadership and Executive Accelerator Program (LEAP) — our new incubator program – to support and train Wipfli women seeking promotions to senior manager, director, partner, and principal roles.

Their efforts are shaping a culture at Wipfli where work/life balance matters — all employees now have varied and flexible work options if they choose to grow their families and careers at the same time.

Wipfli’s is a culture where women’s voices are welcomed and sought out.

It’s a culture where women at all stages of their careers now have ready access to one-on-one mentoring, managerial support, and other essential career development tools necessary to chart their own paths to Wipfli leadership success.

And it’s a culture that has allowed us to better serve our clients and to grow and excel as a company.  We are better off as a result, and it’s smart business.

I feel blessed to lead Wipfli at this specific time in our history. We have come so far from the days when our firm’s leadership looked a singular, certain way and we embrace the idea that diversity engenders richer conversations, more creative ideas, and, ultimately, better solutions. That will contribute to continued business success.

For these contributions, great and small, and the benefits they bring the firm, we owe a large debt of gratitude to Wipfli’s trailblazing women — both those who’ve gone on to well-earned retirements, and those who continue to enrich our company culture today.